From habit to profit

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Senior Pool Turner Photo Courtesy | Lion Athletics

By Taylor Ramirez | Staff Reporter

Turner Pool, senior, has built quite a record in his time competing in distance track and cross country for the university, earning several awards including the Fred Jacoby Academic Athlete of the Year.

However, in his spare time, he enjoys buying and selling golf balls with one of his friends from his hometown of Frisco, Texas.

“It began when I was a kid with my older brother, and I collected golf balls in the woods and creeks near our house which was next to a golf course,” said Pool, “Eventually, one of my friends I met in middle school and I continued to collect the balls just as something to do, and since then we have just started to purchase golf balls in bulk instead of going looking for them ourselves.”

Since then, the hobby has turned a profit for Pool.

“I buy golf balls in bulk primarily from websites such as Craigslist, and I get in contact with a supplier,” Pool said. “We negotiate terms of the agreement, and when I have free time, I rent an U-Haul and go get them, typically 35,000-55,000 at a time.”

When Pool fills the U-Haul, he returns back his grandparents’ house in Atlanta, Texas where he stores and cleans them to sell.

“I have a special machine that cleans the golf balls that I call Teddy,” Pool said. “Once they are clean, I organize and separate the balls based on condition, brand, and model, and I then prepackage the balls into groups of three-dozen to sell on EBay.”

Pool has travelled to Arizona, Indianapolis, Chicago, Michigan, Pennsylvania numerous times, and North Carolina to buy and sell golf balls and has sold up 25,000 golf balls at a time to a wholesaler in Dallas.